The Best Chromebooks You Can Buy, 2017 Edition

While once considered a novelty item by many tech enthusiasts, Chromebooks have broken out of the “just a browser” mold and become legitimate laptops. They’re full-featured, lightweight machines that can do everything most users need them to do. Best of all, they’re more secure and often more affordable than the competition.

Because they’ve gained such popularity, there are a ton of Chromebooks to choose from at this point. There’s no shortage of choices, from the meager, bargain store devices to the ultra high-end premium segment. While that’s a good thing, it’s also hard to find the right one for you. So we’ve picked the current cream of the crop at various price points to help you narrow down that search.

Before we look at some of the best ‘Books on the market today, there’s a big hurdle you need to jump: is a Chromebook even a feasible option for you?

In short: it depends.

You need to take a closer look at how you actually use your computer to make that call. The biggest question, I think, is: do you live in the browser? If Chrome is your most-used app and 95+ percent of what you do on the computer revolves around Chrome, then yeah—a Chromebook will work exceptionally well for you. There are more than likely Chrome-based apps to cover the other five percent of your computing needs, but again, that’s something you’ll need to do a bit of research on.

The other half is hardware. Think about your peripherals or anything else that you plug into the computer. Most printers and scanners will work flawlessly out of the box with a Chromebook, but you won’t be able to do certain things—like sync your iPhone data to your local hard drive, for example. No iTunes means no local access, which could be a deal breaker for some users.